With the help of stimulus money, researchers are hoping to find effective methods of protecting children in an ever-expanding online world.
The Crimes Against Children Research Center (CCRC) at the University of New Hampshire has received over $2 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding through the U.S. Department of Justice to further its research into Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC).
The center will be conducting three studies related to Internet crimes against youth – an evaluation of Internet child safety materials used by ICAC task forces in school and community settings, the third Youth Internet Safety Survey, and the third National Juvenile Online Victimization Study.
The principal investigator on the Internet safety materials evaluation, Dr. Lisa Jones, explained that it aims to produce a standardized toolkit to rate victimization prevention programs used by ICAC task forces in school and community settings. The project will determine whether the way prevention messages are currently being delivered coincides with what is known to work for other at-risk behaviors like using drugs and alcohol.
“There is currently no tool to evaluate outcomes,” she said. “People want evidence for less victimization as the result of [safety education] programs and this study will lay the groundwork for that.”
Jones explained that there is a lot of literature available on the topic of effective strategies for preventing at-risk behaviors in youth. Her study will review this literature and rate the materials implementation of the four best-developed youth Internet safety curricula: Netsmartz, i-SAFE, Web Wise Kids, and iKeepSafe.
The third Youth Internet Safety Survey (YISS-3) will interview a nationally representative sample of 10- to 17-year-olds via phone about their experiences with technology over the past year. This is the same methodology as YISS-1 and YISS-2, allowing for comparison and the discovery of trends and new developments between surveys.
Dr. Kim Mitchell, the lead YISS-3 researcher, worked on the first YISS survey. It was conducted in 2000 and she described it as “groundbreaking.” She said that a significant proportion of respondents – one in five – reported an unwanted online sexual experience. She cautioned, however, that this statistic is often misquoted. It encompasses a wide range of episodes, not all of which have devious and criminal intent. There is a difference, she said, between inquiring about a bra size and aggressive sexual solicitation.
When YISS-2 rolled around five years later, Mitchell said she saw evidence that the big push in education and prevention that occurred in the time period paid off; a smaller percentage of respondents- two in seven this time-reported an unwanted experience than in 2000.
Harassment and bullying did increase in YISS-2, though, which Mitchell said is correlated to online sexual victimization. She said that kids who are using drugs are at a greater risk for sexual victimization.
“Most safety messages are targeted at parents, and this group tends to have bad relationships with parents,” Mitchell said. “We have to find creative ways to reach out through peers and schools.”
YISS-3 will also incorporate “sexting” – text-messaging pornographic images - and Facebook. Conducted in 2000, 2005, and now 2010, Mitchell said that the YISS surveys have been timed well to chronicle the effect of the emergence of the Internet and various technologies associated with it.
The third National Juvenile Online Victimization Study (N-JOV3) will look at the dynamics and nature of ICAC, as well as changes in law enforcement activity. Investigators and prosecutors involved with over 1000 crimes will be interviewed in-house to determine which investigative strategies appear to be working, how law enforcement is responding to cases, and changing trends from the first two N-JOV studies.
Janis Wolak, principle researcher on the study, said that she wants to look at the dynamics and natures of these crimes and determine their severity. She wants to talk to prosecutors to see how they determine the level of criminal activity if, for example, a school reports to police that a student is upset because her boyfriend circulated sexual pictures of her.
Wolak said she also hopes to determine how changes in law enforcement activity – namely increased training and undercover operations – have affected arrests.
Detective Captain Corey MacDonald of the Portsmouth Police Department, commander of the state ICAC taskforce, said that he has seen a lot of “traveler” cases – where the adult travels to meet the victim – and peer-to-peer trading of child pornographic images.
MacDonald said that in cases of travelers, the old image of a stalker discovering a victim’s address through MySpace isn’t very accurate. He said it’s not that this doesn’t happen, but he’s seen far more predators establish a relationship based on false trust – they bond with their victims through talking about their unhappiness, and then lure them to meet in person.
To combat these crimes, MacDonald said that investigators are specially trained to mimic youth and try to lure these travelers to meet up with them, where they will then make an arrest. This type of training takes approximately one week.
Certain detectives also receive forensics training over the course of at least three months in how to go through computers and find deleted files or other signs of abuse. MacDonald described the extensive work these investigators do as “phenomenal” - a single forensics exam of a computer can take two weeks and they can find a lot. Detectives usually move around between areas of crime specialty, but he said that this training is so expensive and time consuming that they look for detectives who are committed to doing just this for several years.
MacDonald said his task force is working on education. If he gets a call that a girl’s photo has been circulating, for example, he wants to have a comprehensive plan in place to handling it and eliminating the photos.
MacDonald said he recognizes the need to establish the nature of a crime, especially in cases of sexting.
“In my opinion, we’re not trying to lock up 16-year-olds for making stupid decisions,” he said. He cited malicious intent as an important distinguisher.
Of all the cases he handles as captain of the detectives unit – from homicides to personal injury – MacDonald cited internet crimes against children as one of, if not his top, priority.
“For me, the most important message to send out is that behind every picture is a child victim,” MacDonald said. “Often, the child also suffers further abuse, like rape. People unfortunately do horrible things.”
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